Page 13 of Curse of Immortality
At that moment, Maeve wished she was one of those Faders that Rose had told her and Althea about. If she could have turned into a mouse and run down the stairs, she would have done so. But it was like her legs wouldn’t co-operate, and childhood memories of Ellen dangling from the noose came back to her in full force. She remembered how Ellen’s frightened face had turned red from the tight rope around her throat that cut off air from entering her lungs. But now, as Maeve stood frozen, it felt as though she was the one who couldn’t breathe.
Any second now, the priest and the grieving parents would turn to see her standing there, completely out of place. How many times had Rose emphasized that humans weren’t strong enough to carry the burden of grief? Instead of consoling the poor parents, the priest called their daughter’s death an act of evil to distance the God he served from the unfair tragedy of losing a precious child. Of course, he had to blame dark forces, or his parishioners might turn on God.
Despite her numbing fear, Maeve managed to move her left foot back. The creaking of the floorboard under her sounded as deafening as church bells in a small room. Without blinking, Maeve stared at the grieving people in front of her as if they were three separate heads of the same dragon ready to attack her at any time.
It felt like the turning of the priest’s body happened in extra slowness, giving Maeve a small eternity to face her mortality. She was fourteen. Too young to have experienced much but old enough to stand trial if the priest found it convenient to cast the blame on her.
The priest was younger than she imagined. He had stubble and looked gray and tired, but he couldn’t be much older than Rose. For a moment, he looked stunned and blinked as if his sleep-deprived eyes were trying to make sense of her standing right there without speaking.
“Who are you?” The sniffling voice came from the mother, who was now watching Maeve as well.
RunMaeve screamed on the inside and as soon as the priest took a step toward her, her body finally listened.
As if Satan himself was on her heels, she ran down the stairs and out of the house. The streets felt narrower and scarier than when she followed the bird, and every corner she turned brought her onto a new street. With her mind in a state of pure panic, she was panting and having trouble with her balance. It was like she was trapped in an endless maze.
She remembered being five and squeezed in between adults with hatred marring their faces as they walked to Ellen’s execution. When two women called out to her, Maeve’s lips quivered, and she began to cry.
“Are you hurt?” one of them asked, but Maeve kept running. Taking another turn, she stopped when the road split into three. She was utterly lost and couldn’t think clearly.
“Maeve.”
Her head snapped up at the sound of her name. There, coming toward her, was Althea. With the sun behind her, her curly orange hair glowed like a halo, and it made Maeve cry with relief.
“Where were you?” Althea scolded, but her tone quickly turned soft. “Oh, no, what happened?”
Grabbing onto her sister’s wrist, Maeve looked back over her shoulder. “I went to see the sick girl, but she had already died. They’re going to blame us for her death if we don’t get away right now.”
The disturbed expression on Althea’s face turned to a look of pure determination. Taking Maeve’s hand, she moved at a fast pace leading Maeve back to the market square where Rose waited. Tobias was already prepared to leave with the buckets tied across his back. With one glance at the state of the girls, Rose ordered, “Keep your heads down and follow me.”
All three of them walked in long strides without speaking. The worst things possible were running through their heads as fear followed them like poisonous honey sticking to their backs. Every little outburst from a child or neigh from a horse made them tense up and hold their breath.
Reaching the edge of the forest felt like reaching land after swimming with sharks, but they still walked fast to get further into the safety of the trees.
In Maeve’s mind, she had barely escaped getting hanged from a tree like Ellen.
Rose didn’t know about Maeve’s encounter with the priest. In her mind, she had made a terrible mistake by exposing the girls to the persuasive powers of young men.
Being an empath, Althea picked up on all the angst and dread and decided that Lerwick was the last place she wanted to go back to.
“Are you alright, Rose?” Althea asked.
“Yes. Don’t worry about me,” she replied but the truth was that she was alarmed at how close she had come to heal the old woman’s hand. She should have never taken a chance like that.
Leading Tobias through the forest, Rose’s thoughts went back to the time she had to flee for her life.
CHAPTER 5
Betrayal of a Friend
15 Years Earlier
Where most Earthens had fled to live in isolation, the Nash family stayed in their small forest cottage clinging to the hope that the humans they had helped over the years wouldn’t turn on them. As a midwife and healer, Matilda had helped more or less all of the villagers at one point or the other. And every farmer in the area knew to consult Paul when it came to understanding the health of their crops.
At nineteen, John was one year younger than his sister Rose, but not half as gifted when it came to working as an Earthen. She knew the names of every herb she saw, and she had mastered complicated recipes long before John.
Both of them had grown up learning to care for animals and humans with compassion and patience, but still, John sometimes questioned if he wanted that lifestyle for himself.
Their parents often said that Earthen’s greatest strength was the kindness in their hearts, but there were days when John didn’t feel kind at all. He resented Rose for how easy everything was for her. And he resented himself for finding it hard to look at her. Eventually, the two siblings drifted apart as John found it easier to avoid his sister altogether.
